Vietnam, the sun warm Southeastern Asian nation, welcomes around 1.7 million foreign tourist arrivals in the first four months of 2008, up 16.1 per cent on-year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) has reported.
The GSO has, however, not made the tourism revenue available during the reviewed period.
Among markets, China takes the lead during the four-month period with more than 291,850, up 63.9 per cent on year, the GSO said, attributing the rise to the two countries’ efforts to speed up bilateral tourism ties in recent times.
The runners-up are South Korea (182,900) and the U.S. (165,500), down 2.5 per cent and up 6.4 per cent respectively against 2007.
Top visitor markets of Vietnam with the strongest year-on-year growth during the period are China (63.9 per cent), Sweden (49.8 per cent) and Finland (43.7 per cent).
Vietnam, however, sees six markets report the on-year fall in January-April namely Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, South Korea, Japan and Spain. Spain dropped most with an on-year decrease of 13.5 per cent, followed by Cambodia, 11.5 per cent and Canada, 7.1 per cent.
Vietnam once again witnesses growth in three groups of international arrivals in the four-month span, including those flocking to the nation for doing businesses, visiting relatives, and for holidays.
The number of visitors coming to the communist country for business registers the highest rate (59.6 per cent), followed by those arriving at the country for holidays (12.3 per cent) and for visiting relatives (12 per cent).
The number of vacationers to the country for other purposes still falls, down 17.8 per cent on year.
Vietnam lured eight foreign-invested tourism projects capitalized at US$1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2008, nearly the same figure last year.
The country hopes to attract five million foreign tourists and serve 21 million domestic holiday makers to yield VND64 trillion (US$4 billion) in 2008. (GSO Edition April, Vietnam Economic Times)
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